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SLF Names Older Writers Grant Winner

The $750 grant assists writers who are at least 50 years old and just starting to work at a professional level.

The Speculative Literature Foundation is a volunteer-run, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the interests of readers, writers, editors and publishers in the speculative literature community.

The Speculative Literature Foundation is pleased to announce that its seventh annual Older Writers Grant is to be awarded to Mario Milosevic. The $750 grant is intended to assist writers who are fifty years of age or older at the time of the grant application, and who are just starting to work at a professional level.

Born in Italy, Milosevic grew up in Canada, graduated from the University of Waterloo with a degree in philosophy and mathematics, and now lives in the Pacific Northwest of the United States with his wife, writer Kim Antieau. He started writing stories when he was nine years old, began submitting to magazines when he was fourteen, and hasn’t stopped since.

Milosevic has published poems, articles, and short stories, and his first novel, Terrastina and Mazolli, has been available for a couple of years. He describes most of his work as exercises in conditional reality, creating narratives that look at the world from a slightly (and sometimes not so slightly) skewed perspective, which may explain how he got it into his head to write about the states unmoored and floating in the ocean. He has found the science fiction and fantasy genres very accommodating to his take on storytelling.

Grant Administrator Malon Edwards said of Milosevic’s entry, “The Untied States of America”: “Susie’s story of post-apocalyptic survival is admirable, considering her loss. Her husband has died a violent death and her son has left her to find adventure amongst the floating states. She’s lonely and sad, but she’s also appreciative of what she has and hopeful for the future. If there are more people like Susie out there, this new America will overcome its difficulties and persevere.”

Honorable Mentions for the Older Writers Grant go to Michele Cashmore, April Grey, Lynne MacLean, Ada Milenkovic Brown, and J.A. Huets for their entertaining submissions, which made the selection of the winner a difficult but enjoyable process.

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The Speculative Literature Foundation is a volunteer-run, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the interests of readers, writers, editors and publishers in the speculative literature community.

“Speculative literature” is a catch-all term meant to inclusively span the breadth of fantastic literature, encompassing literature ranging from hard and soft science fiction to epic fantasy to ghost stories to folk and fairy tales to slipstream to magical realism to modern mythmaking–any literature containing a fabulist or speculative element.